mute amazement, and at first put on an
incredulous and rather scornful expression; but as she came to feel that
it might all be true, she raised herself involuntarily higher up in the
bed.

"But--why do you come with this now, particularly in the middle of the
night?" she said, with a suspicious and searching look.

"Because he has written to his father about it to-day, and means to tell
you and the rest to-morrow."

"So--he has already written? That was his object, then, in bringing you
into the house here," Madam Beck added, after a pause, with some
bitterness.

It seemed to strike her then that there was something noble in
Elizabeth's conduct; and looking at her more kindly, she said--

"Yes, you are right. It is best for you to go away--to some place where
he will not find it so easy to reach you."

She lapsed into thought again. Then a brilliant idea occurred to her,
and she got up and put on her clothes. She had a man's clearheadedness,
and her habits of management stood her in good stead on the present
occasion. The Dutch skipper Garvloit, who had married her half-sister,
happened just a day or two before to have been inquiring for a Norwegian
girl, who would be able to help in the house; and here was just the
place for Elizabeth. She had only to go on board his vessel, that lay
over at Arendal ready to sail.

Madam Beck went into the sitting-room at once, and wrote a letter to
Garvloit, which she gave to Elizabeth, together with a good round sum of
money--wages due, she said; and half-an-hour afterwards Elizabeth was
rowing over alone in the quiet moonlight night to Arendal.

The smooth sound lay full of shining stars between the deep shadows of
the ridges on either side, with a light from a mast here and there
denoting the presence of vessels under the land. A falling star would
now and then leave a stream of light behind it; and she felt a sense of
joyous exultation that she could only subdue by rowing hard for long
spells. She was like one escaped--relieved from some oppressive burden.
And how she looked forward to seeing Marie Forstberg now!

She arrived in the town before daybreak, and went straight up to her
aunt's, to whom she announced that Madam Beck wished her to take a place
in Holland with Garvloit, who was on the point of sailing. She showed
her the letter--there was no time to lose.

The old woman listened to her for a while, and then said abruptly--

"There has been some difficulty w